Explorations in Public Sector Economics

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

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2. Is Voting Rational or Instrumental?

   • Gary S. Becker, Casey B. Mulligan

   Pages 1-11

3. Public Choice Issues in International Collective Action: Global Warming Regulation

   • Daniel Houser, Gary D. Libecap

   Pages 13-34

4. Too Inexpensive to Be Inexpensive: How Government Censorship Increases Costs by Disguising Them

   • J. R. Clark, Dwight R. Lee

   Pages 35-50

5. The Great Depression: A Tale of Three Paradigms

   • Lowell E. Gallaway, Richard K. Vedder

   Pages 51-60

6. Bad Economics, Good Law: The Concept of Externality

   • Roger E. Meiners

   Pages 61-91

7. Why Would Bond Referenda Ever Fail? Do They?

   • William S. Peirce

   Pages 93-107

8. The Effect of Early Media Projections on Presidential Voting in the Florida Panhandle

   • Russell S. Sobel, Robert A. Lawson

   Pages 109-116

9. Ballots, Bribes, and Brand-Name Political Capital

   • R. Morris Coats, Thomas R. Dalton, Arthur Denzau

   Pages 117-137

10. The Effect of Inter-School District Competition on Student Achievement: The Role of Long-Standing State Policies Prohibiting the Formation of New School Districts

    • Katie Sherron, Lawrence W. Kenny

    Pages 139-152

11. The Endowment Effect in a Public Goods Experiment

    • Edward J. Lopez, William Robert Nelson Jr.

    Pages 153-169

12. Are Roads Public Goods, Club Goods, Private Goods, or Common Pools?

    • Bruce L. Benson

    Pages 171-213

This book is a collection of never-before-published papers from some of the most prominent voices in public economics. Curated by the current director of the Public Choice Society, the papers presented showcase the work of recognized leaders in the field, including a Nobel Laureate (Gary Becker), Past Presidents of the Public Choice Society (Larry Kenny, Edward Lopez), the Past President of the Southern Economic Association (Dwight Lee) and some of the most notable public choice economists (Bruce Benson, Russell Sobel, JR Clark, Art Denzau, Morris Coats, Richard Vedder). Among the broad list of topics covered are voting, education quality, environmental issues, externality theory, and public goods theory. This volume makes an important contribution to the field by making new perspectives on a variety of topics accessible to researchers. This book will be of interest to economists, political scientists, and researchers interested in public policy.

• collective action
• externality theory
• public choice
• public economics
• public goods theory
• public policy
• voting

• Department of Economics, West Virginia University, Morgantown, USA

  Joshua Hall

Dr. Joshua Hall (editor) is an Associate Professor at the College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University. His areas of interest include applied microeconomics, with an emphasis on economic freedom, state and local public finance and entrepreneurship. In addition to being the author of more than 50 articles in journals such as Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Public Administration, Research, and Theory, Contemporary Economic Policy, and Southern Economic Journal, he is co-author of the widely-cited Economic Freedom of the World annual report. 

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